(AGENPARL) – ven 28 febbraio 2025 A weekly compendium of media reports on science and technology achievements
at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Though the Laboratory reviews
items for overall accuracy, the reporting organizations are responsible for
the content in the links below.
….. LLNL Report, Feb. 28, 2025
A modeling tool developed by scientists at LLNL shows the progression of an
asteroid being broken up by a theoretical nuclear device. (Graphic: Mary
Burkey)
… Defending Earth from asteroid invaders
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y494xkp3yo
A large asteroid known as 2024 YR4 has grabbed headlines this week as
scientists first raised its chances of hitting earth, then lowered them. The
latest estimate says the object has a 0.28% chance of hitting Earth in 2032,
significantly lower than the 3.1% chance earlier in the week.
We don’t know exactly how big YR4 is yet, but if it is at the top end of
estimates, about 90m across, it would likely remain substantially intact
rather than break up as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
“The surviving asteroid mass could create a crater. Structures in the
immediate vicinity would likely be destroyed and people within the local
region (dozens of kilometers) would be at risk of serious injury,” explains
Professor Kathryn Kunamoto from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
But in recent years, there have been huge advances in what is called
planetary defense.
Read More https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y494xkp3yo
This effort is part of LLNL’s broader Helping Others More Efficiently (HOME)
campaign.
… LLNL supports LA
https://patch.com/california/livermore/lawrence-livermore-donates-82k-socal-wildfire-victims
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory donated a total of over $82,000 to
relief efforts to help individuals and communities affected by the Southern
California wildfires. LLNL employees donated a total of $41,400.69 to 21
charities, which was matched dollar for dollar by the Lawrence Livermore
National Security, LLC., the management and operating contractor for the lab
that administers a charitable giving program.
LLNS received a total of 297 donations from 189 donors, reflecting roughly
two percent of the total workforce, according to a news release. LLNS
allocated funds from a $300,000 reserve from a larger $1.3 million pool
designated for employee engagement in charitable initiatives through 2025.
LLNL prioritized the recent wildfires and allowed employees to select from a
list of vetted charities focused on disaster relief.
Read More
https://patch.com/california/livermore/lawrence-livermore-donates-82k-socal-wildfire-victims
Manufacturing the neural interface involved a new high-density
nanofabrication process. (Photo: Blaise Douros)
… Sniffing out contraband

New “nose-computer interface” aims to upgrade Rover’s nose for better drug detection methods

When you take your dog for a walk, does he stop to sniff every tree trunk and
patch of grass he sees, leaving you to wonder what smells so enticing?
Scientists have also wondered, although not the trivial lawn fodder, what
pups’ sensitive noses pick up to help detect drugs or disease.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and neurotechnology company
Canaery are collaborating to develop an advanced “nose-computer
interface” (NCI) that aims to enhance the ability of scent-detection
animals. The NCI will focus on improving the identification of contraband
substances like narcotics.
The initiative seeks to address limitations in current drug detection
methods, which heavily rely on dogs and other scent-detection animals. While
effective, these methods are subject to handler influence, animal fatigue,
and potential error.
Read More

New “nose-computer interface” aims to upgrade Rover’s nose for better drug detection methods

Testing shows the model performs particularly well on mathematical tasks and
programming challenges.
… Meet Huginn: LLNL’s new language model
https://the-decoder.com/huginn-new-ai-model-thinks-without-words/
A research team from ELLIS Institute Tübingen, the University of Maryland,
and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has developed a language model
called “Huginn” that can deepen its reasoning processes through a
recursive architecture.
Unlike conventional reasoning models like OpenAI’s o3-mini that generate
chains of thought through reasoning tokens, Huginn requires no specialized
training and reasons in its neural network’s latent space before producing
any output.
The model was trained on the Frontier supercomputer using 4,096 AMD MI250X
GPUs — one of the largest training runs ever conducted on an AMD cluster.
The training concept was novel yet fundamentally simple: Unlike typical
language models, Huginn was trained with a variable number of computational
iterations.
Read More https://the-decoder.com/huginn-new-ai-model-thinks-without-words/
LLNL Energy I-Corps Cohort 20 principal investigators and entrepreneurial
leads. (Photo: Melissa Lewelling)
… LLNL gears up for Energy I-Corps
https://dailyenergyinsider.com/news/47303-doe-national-lab-researchers-to-attend-upcoming-energy-i-corps/?amp
Four teams of researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
(LLNL) will attend the Energy I-Corps (EIC) Cohort 20 being held next month
by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
The opening session for the 17 teams coming from across DOE national
laboratories will be held in Colorado from March 17-21, with the closing
session being held from May 27-30 in Washington, D.C.
The EIC, which pairs teams of scientists with industry mentors to train
researchers in moving DOE lab-developed technologies toward
commercialization, will be facilitated by Hannah Farquar, group leader of
Business Intelligence and Market Analysis in the LLNL’s Innovation and
Partnerships Office.
Read More
https://dailyenergyinsider.com/news/47303-doe-national-lab-researchers-to-attend-upcoming-energy-i-corps/?amp
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provides solutions to our nation’s most important national security
challenges through innovative science, engineering and technology. Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory is managed by Lawrence Livermore National
Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security
Administration.
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